Wildone wrote on Oct 29, 2014, 13:17:Tried 3 times get patch errors. When I do it running the ships handle like giant passenger cruisers, laggy and slow to respond to inputs. Dont tell me about ICSISICISISIC B.S...it sucks out of the box.

For perspective, it took the PS1 10 years to land 100 million units, and the PS2 was in full swing during the last 4 of those years and that console went on to sell 155 million units.

With mobile technology getting more powerful every generation, and the market growing just as quickly...I think 100m Rifts sold is totally obtainable.

Phones already have the gyroscopes needed to act as a virtual controller when wearing the headset, so throw in another bluetooth controller for the other hand and a belt mounted battery back and you'll see kids cooperatively slaying dragons in an augmented reality on the school's soccer pitch during lunch in what...6 years?

In the last three generations of highschool kids, it's gone from only a minority owning a simple phone with monochrome LCD screen to a majority with dual or quad core phones and +1080p screens

I came here to post the same quote. 100M units sure sounds like a lot. I think he'll be lucky to sell 50M in 10 years. And I appreciate he's being pretty realistic about it. But let's face it, this is a niche product, not something everyone is going to own. Even the phone version with a 1440P or 4K resolution you need the viewer for VR. The phone fits in your pocket and goes everywhere with you. The viewer, not so much.

Oculus will be more useful for business and industry I suspect. The obvious niche is video game VR, but cheap, quality stereovision equipment could seriously be useful in a lot of different applications.

We already know the new generation of fighter jets use cameras and a similar system to project total awareness around the plane (whether or not this is a good idea is another argument) but there's no reason that situational awareness couldn't be pushed to civilian applications.

Quboid wrote on Oct 28, 2014, 23:47:but simple things like glancing at the keyboard is awkward

For racing simulators, there were some mod ideas floating around in the community for digitally inserting a keyboard into the virtual car cockpit and placing it in the same location/angle as it is in your physical seating position. The idea being you can hit a button on the steering wheel and the digital keyboard will pop up on the hud, allowing you to natural reach out and type. There's some obvious shortcomings to all this, but it's a good starting point.

I'd rather mount a selfie-quality cell phone cam angled downward into the headset and with a button press the bottom third of your view changes to a real-world camera view. Breaks immersion a little but is way better than trying to orientate a keyboard so that it matches up to your VR perspective.

SpectralMeat wrote on Oct 29, 2014, 11:31:A good HOTAS can make a lot of difference and they do not have to cost an arm and leg either. I hear a lot of people likes this.I am using a Saitek X-55 and after a week or so I've switched back to my old Logitech joystick and couldn't believe how inaccurate that was. Couldn't hit shit.

Yeah I had that Thrustmaster joystick too. It didn't quite have the features on it I'd like but it worked pretty well.

Also, which one couldn't you hit shit with the thrustmaster or the saitek?

SpectralMeat wrote on Oct 29, 2014, 06:29:For those of you guys having trouble with combat. Just keep practicing. It takes a little time to get used to it but ones you get a hang of it, it is super satisfying to dogfight. I did have to dedicate a few nights to practice dogfighting but it's well worth it. Things like a decent HOTAS and TrackIR will help but I have seen guys flying with kb/m and doing really well. Just practice practice practice.

Even if you are just planning to be a trader or any other non combatant in Elite, having the skills to fly your ship efficiently will benefit you on the long run. Even traders get intercepted by pirates and have to do a speed docking every ones in a while. Having the skills to out manuever and get away from pirates can make a difference between a big paycheque or a big hole in your wallet.

Yeah I still suck overall but I'm getting better. Key thing is if you're using a joystick & keyboard (My saitek HOTAS broke in my move and I can't afford to replace it, so my old logitech is standing in), you HAVE to remeber your strafing, lateral, and vertical thrusters. Otherwise you'll never be able to aim with any proficiency. Your attack opportunities are pretty narrow, especially if you don't have gimballed weapons. Getting your sights onto the enemy as fast as possible is that much more important in those situations.

Quboid wrote on Oct 29, 2014, 11:14:Thanks Flatline. It's a really hard thing for the devs to get right, too high a penalty and mucking around wouldn't be worthwhile, too low a penalty and there's little suspense. 20% sounds like a lot but from what you're saying, this isn't something you're going to need after a brief encounter off the shoulder of Orion.

Arithon wrote on Oct 29, 2014, 04:55:Star Citizen is coming along in leaps and bounds, but won't be ready for some time. Elite will be out before Christmas. So be happy about this! We have two great space sims - one now and one on the way for next year!

QFT. The comparisons are inevitable but like Wasteland and Fallout, it's very possible that we will end up with 2 great games and we all win.

Running is definitely something you want to consider, if you manage to rabbit with like 2% hull left and all your systems blown to shit, it costs a fraction of what the ship insurance would cost.

Also, before really bailing and going into the deep I'd probably stick around more populated areas and upgrade my ship significantly to improve survivability.

Quboid wrote on Oct 29, 2014, 00:36:How does death work; in practise what is needed to get back to where you where before the ill-advised combat encounter, in terms of your ship and its load out? Can you reload a saved game in single player or do these (up to date?) rules apply and again, in practise what does this mean - is the excess large enough to discourage reckless exploration?

Are there any limits on the commanders your can create, how many or how often?

One "save game" that I'm aware of, as many ships as you'd like that I'm aware of at this point.

When your ship blows up real good, you have a couple choices. You can get sent back to your basic sidewinder and keep all your credits in your bank.

You can get your ship replaced for 20% of the cost of the total loadout, minus cargo, including upgrades.

You can buy your ship back and as many of your upgrades as you want and can afford.

There are no reloads though.

As far as exploration, you'd be fairly hard pressed to kill yourself if you're smart about it, since they introduced fuel scoop refueling from stars. In the final game the galaxy will have 400 billion stars, which probably works out to at least several billion systems or at least several hundred million systems.

Pick a direction and go. If you keep going you'll hit the black and be completely on your own.

As for surviving pirates and stuff, if you can survive long enough for your jump drive to cool off you probably can jump to survive. It's doable to dump all power to the engines and rabbit at the beginning of an interdiction encounter so far.

Edit: most of those death rules don't seem to be enforced yet, but considering that Beta 3 introduced like 500 new items or fixes and is a significant step up in the game, it's not unreasonable that these systems might be tested prior to launch if they're still intended.

Dacron wrote on Oct 28, 2014, 19:48:I did the same combat is incredibly difficult for me. Don't bother upgrading. Save roughly 225k credits and buy a Cobra MK 3.

That changed significantly. The Anaconda is I think like 130 million creds now. Cobra Mk 3 is going to be pretty effing pricey too.

Also don't sneer at the sidewinder. I've seen fully upgraded sidewinders do some pretty insane stuff.

Edit: I adjusted to combat *way* quicker than I did with Star Citizen. Though they keep tweaking the flight phsyics so like for example I noticed that yanking back on the stick and thrusting down doesn't actually improve my turn rate quite so much any more.

Slashman wrote on Oct 28, 2014, 22:27:I need to know that offline play offers everything that online play does before I buy this.

I'm not really interested in Elite Multiplayer and being a slave to server lag.

It does. And your solo game is the same for multiplayer and vice versa, so your gains apply to both modes. When you choose solo you will not have PvP or any other player encounters but can play the game fully. I play it solo mostly because I'm terrible at dog fighting. If you buy a new ship, upgrade it in solo play, it will be the ship you fly in multiplayer, with same credits as solo.

NegaDeath wrote on Oct 28, 2014, 13:46:Oh hell yes. Whoever it is that's going into these old games and updating them to run better on modern hardware (non-dosbox games I mean), you deserve a gold star. Also props to Disney for, thus far anyways, listening to fans that Lucasarts preferred to ignore in it's later days.

Don't stop here, plenty of games in the catalog that could use some lovin. Jedi Knight/MotS for example have broken direct3d modes.

Jedi Knight would be good to see back. It... hasn't aged very well, but it'd be fun to go back to.

Flatline wrote on Oct 28, 2014, 11:50:Christ yes I remember that. It was a TIE bomber (maybe a TIE Fighter?) against the T:A I think? And you fulfilled a secret mission objective if you managed to destroy *one*.

No, it was definitely a bomber, though you may be right that the enemies were Advanceds rather than Defenders. The storyline goes that the emperor has been betrayed, and all the Tie Fighters are out on a mission, so while the emperor flies off in his shuttle, you have to defend him in the only ship available, a bomber.

And yes, you did get a secret objective if you killed one. I actually did pretty well in it, think I took out several. Lasers to take down shields, and then dual proton up the ass.

You're right. I'll spoiler it in case nobody's played through it yet because it's one of the highlights of the game. It's TIE Advanced. You have to survive long enough to let Vader and the Defenders show up. Then you have to race to the Emperor over the next couple missions and defend his shuttle against the waves of TIE Advanced missions. That was when I believe it was Harkin defects and tries to kill the Emperor. Then Zaarin steals the Defenders and Thrawn counters the Defenders by creating the Missile Boat.

Creston wrote on Oct 28, 2014, 11:43:I beat everything in Xwing, Tie and Alliance, but there were a few missions that were so fucking annoying that I basically just never bothered to replay them again. (at least Alliance let you skip three missions to continue on with the story.)

Having to defend a single fucking shuttle from Tie Bombers who come in from various quadrants at timed intervals, and if you're a second slow you see 12 proton torpedoes going after that shuttle is just too aggravating for my taste anymore. There was one in Alliance too where you have to protect a convoy from a several capship attacks, and it took me forever, and I could never beat it until I finally realized that even though they say you have to hurry to defend the convoy at the next nav point, you actually can just go back to base, land, and get more proton torpedoes to bring for the next wave. Only way I could ever complete that one.

Taking out Star Destroyers was easy, just incredibly boring. Just dual proton torp the shield generators, then hang right behind its engine where it can't hit you, and sit there for 30 minutes firing lasers at full power. I even killed the Executor that way; I think it took like an hour's worth of just sitting there holding the fire button down. Not exactly thrilling...

But Tie Fighter was incredible. There's one mission where, IIRC, you have to dogfight Tie Defenders while you are in a Tie Bomber. When the mission started I actually yelled "THAT'S FUCKING BULLSHIT!" only to finish the whole thing in the first try.

Christ yes I remember that. It was a TIE bomber (maybe a TIE Fighter?) against the T:A I think? And you fulfilled a secret mission objective if you managed to destroy *one*.

But yes the shuttle escort missions were like fingernails on a blackboard. Or worse yet, the raiding missions where they sent a troop transport to do a board & capture, and the fucking shuttle is just sitting there, nice and vulnerable, for like 10 minutes against 10 TIE Bombers?